The Washington Post made reducing the pay of autoworkers by $4.00 an hour a central theme of its coverage (both news and editorial) of the auto industry bailout. For this reason it is especially noteworthy that its discussion of new plans for bailing out banks has no mention whatsoever of executive compensation at the banks. In good years, the highest paid bank executives could make more money in an hour than a UAW autoworker earns in a year. For this reason, readers may find restrictions on the compensation of bank executives to be an important part of what could be another trillion dollar bailout package for Wall Street. The omission of any discussion of executive compensation is quite striking.
--Dean Baker